Could Learning Mandarin Be the New Key to Succeeding in the Fashion Industry? | Fashionista #Chinese #Luxury #Fashion

Need a leg up in the fashion industry? You might want to start learning Mandarin. In December Chinese shoppers officially surpassed American shoppers as the number one consumers of luxury goods . Now, luxury companies are doing everything in their power to adapt to this growing market–and one of the ways they’re doing it is by encouraging, or in some cases, requiring, that their retail associates learn Mandarin. Today Burberry reported that they’d doubled the number of Mandarin speaking sales associates in Europe over the past year and seen a 15% increase in revenue in the Asia-Pacific region. A Chanel retail associate, who wished to remain anonymous, spoke of a mini-Mandarin course she was required to take in 2012. “There were five hour-long classes,” she said. “The first being greetings and cultural differences. We learned sizing numbers, monetary phrases, and fabric.” S...